Australian Quarterly: 85 years in 85 days

Australian Quarterly, which claims to be Australia’s oldest current affairs magazine, temporarily lowered its paywall early in 2014 to give free access to articles published from 1929 to 1989 (which is only 60 years but let that pass). Some of the articles selected cover the Empire and Commonwealth (1929, 1941), party politics (1931), defence (1937), sex (1944), White Australia (1945), television (1957), women (1963), the environment (1970, 1989) and Indigenous Australians (1930, 1981).

AQ was a pioneer, though it gave the impression even in the 1960s and 70s that it was the sort of journal read by elderly gents in clubs. Nowadays it looks more modern, although it has been swamped by dozens of imitators and competitors.